#1 - Films that take a Mary Celeste type scenario and do nothing with that. No noteworthy mystery, no atmosphere, etc.

Examples: Virus (1999), Ghost Ship (2002), Black Ops (2008).

I'd imagine the experience of the people exploring the Celeste was quite unnerving. Those two films had some content that would satisfy gorehounds, but nothing remotely scary. We already from the opening scene of Virus it's just some alien life form. We already know from the title of Ghost Ship it's just generic spooks. Both films utterly wasted their scariest element.

Ghost Ship was particularly bad - IIRC (haven't seen the movie for quite some time), apparently seeing a missing boat, one that's been the subject of urban legends or whatever in the movie's universe, finding it floating (it didn't sink), has less significance for these people than finding gold onboard it.

Bad wrap around plots. Ok there are some truly amazing films that utilize this device where essentially we start with the ending. I mean Citzen Kane uses it for gods sake. However when used in a bad movie it takes all tension out of the film as we know full well how our protagonist is doing in the end. A movie called "Permanent Midnight" I saw recently had a particularly bad example of this.

Characters explaining the plot to you endlessly-Often when directors make/write movies that make no sense by themselves they need to have their characters endlessly discuss what is going on/what is about to happen. Inception is a prime example of this as it requires over an hour of exposition to explain what's about to happen. This is not good screenwriting and its not good cinema!

Don't really know what its called but I have seen increasing use of filters that limit the range of colors on the screen. I don't know what its called but here's an example.

I could see this style working for a short or music video but for a whole movie it is really insufferable. Plz somebody tell me what's going on here, I thought Pontypool also had a similarly terrible reduced color scheme.

'false scares' in horrors that rely on a sudden and disproportionately loud noise to generate the scare, which then turns out to be something not scary, like a cat knocking over a saucepan or something. - but only when the massive loud noise is the only thing that's used to do it. that's too easy... there are more effective and artistic ways to create a 'false scare'

I guess the worst is just the lack of originality. Why do these people get into the film business - a creative field - if all they want to do is make the most generic SyFy Original humanity has ever seen? Would it kill them to come up with a plot structure that we haven't seen, verbatim, in fifty other movies?

Obnoxious, unlikable characters is another one that will get me to turn off a movie within 5 minutes. What's with having characters fight? Having a group of "friends" go someplace together when it's obvious they don't even like each other? Do these writer/director/producers just sit at home watching MTV's The Real World thinking that's what people are like in real life?

Editing gimmicks, like 20 cuts in 5 seconds. Egads. Seriously, is watching a strobe effect better than anything you can actually film Mr. Director?

I guess the worst is just the lack of originality. Why do these people get into the film business - a creative field - if all they want to do is make the most generic SyFy Original humanity has ever seen? Would it kill them to come up with a plot structure that we haven't seen, verbatim, in fifty other movies?

this is just the depressing fact of 99% of all media endeavors IMO. music, tv, film, video games... maybe it's the fear of breaking formula, going outside the norm, potentially losing money/audience by not following a tried and tested formula? Is being creative and original even part of the plan, at any stage for most directors?

- easy to sit back and criticise on the net of course, I know making a movie must be a huge and demanding task and all that. but...

Action/fight scenes that are edited to death. Ex: watched THE BOURNE LEGACY last night and the final chase was so shaky and choppily edited it actually started to make me queasy. (All the Bourne sequels are guilty of this, in fact.) If you're going to go to the trouble of setting up a scene like that, why on earth don't you show it?

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Through the darkness of future pastThe magician longs to seeOne chance opts between two worldsFire walk with me

school/college age kids played by actors blatanty in their late 20s or even 30s

or in some cases the school age kids will be played by actors the appropriate age except for the 'main' schoolkid or only important one to the movie, who will be way older, making it even more obvious...

Villains that are built up as "super bad" sociopaths that turn out to be nothing. I find the scenes in movies that are only present to show me how "bad" or "evil" the villain is to be particularly irritating, especially if that's the ONLY thing we EVER see him do that's "evil."

Corollary: Cheap character development like this is general. For instance, the hero+wife tender moment scene at the beginning of an action movie where we never see the wife again and her presence was only to show his "tender side" or that he had something to live for, etc.

Gag. It's a cliché.

There is some GOOD writing out there. Unfortunately, not much of it is making it to screenplays that get financial backing.

Lack of GOOD characterization. I like slasher films. Really, I do. However, somewhere along the line the idea came along that slasher films are only about the horrific deaths of disposable characters. While, I guess that is true, you still need to populate your film with people we care about. I've seen way too many films where are the people are disposable douchebag stereotypes. The frat boys, the stupid cheerleaders, the disposable comic-relief nerd... these are awful people nobody wants to spend time with. Sure, you kill them, but that doesn't bring back the time I wasted with these annoying characters.

That's one thing I really liked about Cabin in the Woods, they had an explanation for these stereotypes, and they made them genuinely enjoyable people to spend time with before they were killed. I recently watched V/H/S, which was solely populated with idiots.

Tip to every filmmaker everywhere, if you don't care about making your characters real people, we don't care about them either. You've turned your film into a pointless genre exercise. It might work if you're a genius, but you're probably not. Make your characters real people, and then kill them. There's a reason Stephen King became a superstar author, for all his faults. He built up genuine empathy for his characters, and THEN he murdered them in cold blood.

Logged

Every dead body that is not exterminated becomes one of them. It gets up and kills. The people it kills, get up and kill.

school/college age kids played by actors blatanty in their late 20s or even 30s

or in some cases the school age kids will be played by actors the appropriate age except for the 'main' schoolkid or only important one to the movie, who will be way older, making it even more obvious...

I agree, but there are reasons for this, especially why teenagers are not normally played by teens themsevles.

(1) It is the law that teens, especially younger teens, spend a certain amount of time in the classroom, and this counts against the amount of time they can spend on the studio lot. So, someone in their 20s or even '30s can spend more time in front of the camera, then a teen. There are also legal restrictions on how late at night a teen can work. This restriction is not so strict for someone older.

(2) There are certain scenes in a film that will not only get the moral arbitors after you, but the law as well. This does not apply for someone in their '20s or even '30s.

(3) And let's be frank, while there are some great teen actors and actresses out there, someone who is older is normally the better actor or actress, as they are more experienced. And you want to try to get the best actor or actress you can.

Now, as for #2, one of the reasons that "Lair of the White Worm" and "Private Lessons" works so well (IMHO) is that the actors portraying two of the characters in the films are only an year or two older than their character. Chris Pitt as Kevin in "Lair of the White Worm" and Eric Brown as Phillip Fillmore in "Private Lessons," but that was in the '80's. Today there is serious doubt whether you could use actors that young in the two films. Indeed, while most of "Private Lessons" was shot in Arizona, certain scenes had to be shot in New Mexico where the age of sexual consent was less.

(1) It is the law that teens, especially younger teens, spend a certain amount of time in the classroom, and this counts against the amount of time they can spend on the studio lot. So, someone in their 20s or even '30s can spend more time in front of the camera, then a teen. There are also legal restrictions on how late at night a teen can work. This restriction is not so strict for someone older.

yeah I've heard of the schoolwork law actually, fair point. it didnt cross my mind. didn't know about the late night restrictions though

I suppose that's why the main child in Kindergarden Cop had to be played by 2 different identical twins for this reason. obviously a 5 or 6 year old can't be protrayed by anyone much above that age

I've noticed a lot of modern films, especially TV movies, are for the most part forgettable fluff or so blatantly offensive as to be unwatchable (especially comedies nowadays). Sometimes fluff can be passable enough to watch one time but certainly presents nothing memorable or of any consequence. I did prefer the fluff of yesteryear as often the characters proved more fun and genuinely likable.